Climbing Trees Backwards

Climbing Trees Backwards is Richard Lyon’s fifth novel since moving to Hebden Bridge in 2011. As in his previous stories on war and terrorism Climbing Trees Backwards explores the trauma of separation and loss, and of individuals caught in the vacuum between desire and reality struggling to discover new truths.

Martha Pearlman had saved Robert Corlett’s life in Paris after a psychotic breakdown following the death of his wife. In a chance meeting in a London park she challenges Robert to admit his destructive lifestyle. In their autumn years both are searching for love. As adults they have hidden emotional emptiness behind promiscuity. Confronting troubled pasts they slowly reveal themselves with searing honesty. Martha, a no-nonsense New Yorker, pulls no punches telling Robert “ … you’re a grown man, you’ve another twenty years of life … or you may not … You decide what to do with our chance meeting …”